A Fearsome Thing
by coeurgryffondor
Summary: "Room left for me to join you?" the Norwegian asks in a flat voice that gives away none of his unusual anxiety when thunder booms and the whole house seems to shake. / Written for Nordic Romance Fest.


Author's note: Written for LJ's Nordic Romance Fest, prompts were SuNor, storm, and autumn. I guess it helps that a lot of my SuNor just inadvertently involves storms to begin with.

Quote by Abraham Maslow.

* * *

**A Fearsome Thing**  
_We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves,_  
_but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves._

The wind is absolutely howling, rain lashing against the windows of the car as Berwald pulls into the driveway. Lukas in the driver's seat can barely make out his own house, those familiar lines that familiar hands crafted for him.

When the car is put into neutral without opening the garage door, the Norwegian casts a weary and challenging glance towards his companion. "Power's out, see?" Berwald points to the lack of light in the house, that familiar glow gone. "Garage won't open unless I get out and do it myself."

"Shall I pull in then?" Lukas somehow finds he doesn't like the idea of his Swedish lover out in the open. He may love storms, but this one was a fearsome thing, stronger than any he can remember occurring in centuries.

The Swede takes him in behind glasses before pulling him across the center console to kiss. He hands Lukas his glasses since in this torrential downpour they're of little use, pulls his hood up, and buttons his coat. The door swings open with ease in the wind, much more effort being exerted in closing it. Lukas climbs quickly over the seats to get behind the wheel, watching Berwald force the door open with all his might before being blown inside.

The car securely in Berwald forces the door closed, Lukas running out to join him. When it hits the concrete floor they're plunged suddenly into darkness save the lights from inside the car.

"Fuck that hurt," Berwald manages and Lukas can hear the shiver in his voice; with autumn securely upon them the temperature has dropped considerably, and with the rain it was almost unbearable.

"Go inside," the Norwegian insists, "I'll bring our stuff in." He hands back Berwald's glasses.

The pludgey sound as the soaking-wet Nord walks away in the dark is almost comical.

* * *

Inside Lukas manages to move using the little light the windows are letting in, the whole space bathed in it momentarily as lightening flashes. Moving out of the kitchen, everything away and a bar of chocolate in his hands, he continues on to the sitting room. This room at least is well illuminated, Berwald sitting before the roaring fire with a blanket wrapped around him. His wet clothes are laying off to the side.

"Room left for me to join you?" the Norwegian asks in a flat voice that gives away none of his unusual anxiety when thunder booms and the whole house seems to shake. Berwald, like the mountain of a man he is, smiles up at him.

"Only if I get some of that chocolate."

Stepping out of his shoes Lukas hands the candy bar down to pull his pants and socks off, leaving his sweater that had managed to stay dry despite the weather's best attempts otherwise. Into awaiting arms he crawls, the Norwegian pressing his cheek to Berwald's chest; beneath it he feels a quickening heartbeat that makes him sigh.

There's the gentle rustle of a blanket being pulled more securely around them, their body heat building before the fire as a hand strokes his lower back. Two dry lips kiss his wet forehead.

"Thank you for getting out of the car for me," Lukas murmurs. He still feels a twinge of guilt, unnormal for him. When others did things for him it was because he deserved it, having to put up with their stupidity and bullshit; this somehow had felt different, the storm different, Berwald different. That frightens him.

Berwald pushes his sweater further up to rub reassuring circles higher up his back, looking intently at the Norwegian with the sort of focus only the Swedish kingdom has ever possessed. Lukas even manages to feel his face start to burn; he tells himself it's from the heat and not Berwald, that his part-time lover has long ago lost that sort of power over the former Viking.

He knows it's a lie.

When thunder booms his heart skips a beat, pressing his body further into Berwald. The man holds him.

"It's because of how big the storm is," he assures the smaller Nordic nation. "Do you remember how jumpy you were when Norway was being unified?"

"I remember you and Christen trying to get in claims on my land." Berwald snorts.

"How could we not, when the land was so beautiful?" His unoccupied hand smoothes down Lukas's cheek, over his shoulder, down to his hip, and over his bare thigh. "It still is, after all." The Norwegian shivers, attempting a sneer in retaliation.

"As if you were never so disturbed when ripped in two." He doesn't have to specify what he means because they both know where Lukas goes with his insults when he gets defensive: to picking on Finland, to picking on Timo.

"Yes, well," and the hand falls from his thigh, Lukas looking up to see Berwald staring deep into the fire. Thunder booms again but this time the Norwegian ignores it in favor of his lover. "That was..." He doesn't finish and there it is again, guilt for having brought such pain; Lukas regrets his words, a very rare occurrence.

A hand reaches out to run over Berwald's collarbone, up his neck, and stroke his cheek. When the Swede doesn't look down, clearly still upset, Lukas forces his face down, sitting up to press his lips to Berwald's. The kiss is simple but searing, his body shifting to straddle his lover's lap, his arms wrapping around his lover's neck. The man's body is still chilled from the rain, wind continuing to last branches against the side of the house.

He kisses him again, pressing his sweater-clad torso into Berwald's bare chest; his hands slide up and down that back, feeling little bumps of skin under his fingertips. Lukas rocks his hips once, winning a moan.

Then the intensity returns, that gaze from his sometimes-lover, sometimes-enemy, always-friend. It burns Lukas, his hands shaking as they remove glasses from that face, but the gaze never waivers. He places the glasses carefully down among their clothes, arms helping him lift his sweater and undershirt over his head, pulling them off. The blanket is brought securely around them again and Lukas presses his body into Berwald's, both men in only their briefs.

Finally the other man takes a deep breath and immediately Lukas knows what he's about to say, lips crashing against lips to stop those inevitable words.

"Lu–"

"Shh."

"But–"

"Shh."

Hips grind against hips and with that the words die, forgotten. Lukas holds Berwald's head to his shoulder tightly as he shifts to rest on his bent legs, thrusting down again and again, flicking his hip bones. Berwald holds him close, littering his skin with wet, sloppy kisses. The friction is wonderful between their bodies, their cocks pressing against each other. Lukas's breathing becomes shallow as the Swede bites at his shoulder, groaning.

Hands, still cool to the touch, knead Lukas's ass through his briefs before tugging the fabric down; fingers tease, pushing at his entrance but never entering. Frustrated the Norwegian moves his hips up and immediately Berwald pulls the offending article down, Lukas pulling them off the rest of the way to throw over onto the couch.

Without care he shoves at Berwald's briefs, the man lifting his hips so that they too can be thrown somewhere in the distance, the room bright as lightening cracks down too close to the house. To fight away any possible fear Lukas lets a hand fall between them, grabbing both cocks to stroke, one of Berwald's hands joining him.

His head rolls about wildly, his breathing shallow and loud, his legs growing tired. Berwald kisses all across his chest and neck, marking him over and over; his breathing too is loud to the Norwegian's ears.

Thunder cracks all around them as he moans.

Berwald pulls Lukas to his chest with an arm around his back, the smaller man's hand continuing to stroke them. Three fingers press at his lips; eagerly Lukas takes them in, his tongue swirling around them, enjoying their foreign length in his mouth. That wins him a groan from his lover, their eyes locked as Lukas continues sucking at them. When they're pulled from his lips the Norwegian groans, missing them.

So his lover kisses him, tongues battling for supremacy in their place, as the fingers move to his ass to push and slick and loosen. Lukas squirms as one, then two, are pushed into him, his head falling back and Berwald's lips attacking his Adam's apple, sucking on it as he scissors him before pushing the third finger in. The smaller Nord gasps.

Berwald says something against his throat, something that sounds like, "Jenelskerffhng." Lukas appreciates the attempt though not the sentiment.

"Don't say that," he manages and that fucking Swede has the gall to laugh.

"Want to."

"Shh."

"Want you."

"Good."

"Love you," and before Lukas can slap him, Swedish fingers are pulled from him, something larger taking their place as hands guide his hips. And he lets his anger disappear as he takes in his lover's length, pulling Berwald to his chest, fingers clawing at his back.

"God," he moans slowly, chin pressing into the back of a Swedish shoulder.

"'m not God," the man laughs against his collarbone, biting at the skin.

"Shut up," and Lukas pulls up to slam back down.

The only sound for several minutes is their grunting as they move, Swedish hands still holding Lukas's hips tight to help him, Norwegian head thrown back. One of the larger man's hands goes rogue as his slide up and down Berwald's chest and shoulders, gripping Lukas's erection and starting to stroke it in time with their moves. Then Berwald decides to change the antics, pulling the blanket still trying to cling to them away so that he can lay his lover out before the fire, lifting Norwegian hips to thrust harder.

At this angle the light from the fire casts shadows across Berwald's face, thunder resonating through the land as the man bends down to claim Lukas's mouth. Their thrusting has become desperate, Lukas feeling that familiar tightness in his lower stomach. The rain lashes at the windows.

Against his jaw Berwald finally manages to get out his words, thrusting hard and painfully into Lukas's ass. "Jeg elsker deg," he whispers as he jerks at the Norwegian cock, repeating himself over and over until Lukas can't take it. "Jeg elsker deg, jeg elsker deg, jeg elsker deg."

I love you.

If the Norwegian had been doing anything else he would have been able to stop and slap Berwald for saying such things in his own tongue, but as it was he was finding it difficult to fight those words right now. Instead all Lukas can do is dig little half-moons into Berwald's back before screaming, coming between them.

His lover follows shortly after, face and body flushed, the chill of autumn finally gone. Despite his size the man collapses on top of him, Lukas keeping his legs wrapped around those hips for a little longer. Berwald kisses him slowly.

"Jeg elsker deg."

"I heard you."

"Tell me you love me too."

"In Swedish?" Lukas challenges, rolling his eyes; he doesn't miss the man's smile.

"In whatever you'd like."

"Why do you always want to say it?" He palms up and down the man's chest when Berwald sits, unwrapping his legs. Instead of an answer he gets the Swede picking something up and chuckling.

"We forgot the chocolate bar." When the man lays back down beside him he hands Lukas the bar, clearly melted from the fire's heat. "Oh well."

"Berwald–"

"Because I do." Silence falls between them before the man elaborates. "Because I don't want you to forget that I love you. That I do so freely, that I do so willingly. That what I feel for you, I feel for you alone. And because I do."

"You're an idiot." Lukas rolls over so his back is to Berwald, unwrapping the sticky chocolate bar and dipping his finger in to lick at it.

"You're eating a melted chocolate bar, and I tried to tell the man I was making love to how much he means to me."

"Still an idiot," Lukas says coolly but arms wrap around him, pulling him against the Swede, and he has to sigh a little at the touch. "And don't do this, I'm all sticky and gross."

"You did that to yourself," Berwald challenges.

"We can't both have penises up our asses at the same time." Lips kiss his cheek. No lightning strikes; maybe the storm was finally moving away.

"Tell me you love me."

"Why do I have to say what you already know?"

"What if I forget?"

"You won't."

"What if I worry?"

"That's your problem Swede, not mine."

"What if I just want to know that you are mine willingly?" Because he's been Berwald's before, but never with his freedom intact.

Lukas rolls over, offering a chocolate-covered finger to his lover; the man licks it clean, pushing hair off the Norwegian's sweaty face. "Do you worry about that? About me doing this because I feel I have to?" Berwald shrugs.

"Sometimes I see you and Christen and think, »He goes back to him because he spent so much time with him, because he had no other choice, in the past.» Then I wonder if perhaps the others think that when they see us together."

No thunder cracks as Lukas mulls that over, though the fire does make a hissing noise. "I've only ever had two lovers," he confesses and his fellow kingdom nods having known that. "I have loved both of them. I don't like love." At that Berwald draws his eyebrows together, reaching out for his glasses to back on his face. "Love is awful."

"It doesn't have to be."

"I'm afraid of love," the Norwegian whispers.

"That's news to me."

"Humans are ugly, nations like us are ugly: the world is ugly, with war and bloodshed and hatred and bigotry. Love makes you think it's beautiful."

Berwald smiles sweetly. "You're beautiful."

"You're in love," Lukas counters, rolling his eyes again.

"Am I beautiful?"

He holds his lover's gaze, so strong like the storm had been, demanding but cautious, passionate but overwhelming. "Perhaps."

Arms encircle him, pulling him even closer. "Love is a fearsome thing," and Berwald kisses him. "Then again, so are we."

* * *

Upon waking, half laying atop Berwald, body barely covered by the sheets, Lukas takes the opportunity to check if his companion is asleep. The man is lightly snoring, happily content on his back on the Norwegian's bed. He's out cold Lukas decides, having known the man long enough to tell when he really is and when he's faking. The clock on the bedside table is blinking; the power must have come back on while they were asleep.

He lets one hand slide up the Swedish chest, over a shoulder, to cup Berwald's cheek. Gently Lukas shifts to kiss the other one.

"I love you Berwald Oxenstierna," he whispers. Then the Norwegian settles back in, another storm for autumn starting up outside.


End file.
